The justified public outcry against phone hacking by journalists has possibly reached its peak. Those who used to seek Rupert Murdoch's friendship are now calling for his scalp. Thankfully the rule of law prevails, and so morals and ethics gain the upper hand. That much is almost universally agreed.

And now a newspaper hated by the rich and powerful with a 3.5m circulation has ceased to exist. Personally I did not like the paper; it was all too sensationalist and tawdry for my taste. What is clear is that its senior executives (as Rebekah Brooks's rather belated resignation proves) and some junior employees did or sanctioned deplorable things. But what if they had worked their tactics not against a 13-year-old dead girl or broken-hearted families of soldiers killed in action, but against corrupt and powerful bad guys, whose stories, alas, are not so entertaining to sell in the paper?

Supposing it had exposed huge banks like Barclays, which is now covering a $700m loss in Russia? Or Madoff's and Gaddafi's dirty money – billions of corrupt dollars – stored in Britain? Alas, no one is after those who robbed their fellow citizens of hundreds of billions.

Investigative journalism as a profession is becoming a dying breed. The powerful and rich are always protected by countless lawyers and privacy laws. After these fair lessons about illegal and murky journalism we have witnessed in recent days, who is going to risk practising proper investigative journalism? Shall we now only allow the markets and online social media finish the work and eradicate real freedom of the press, and let Britain become like Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Ukraine, Burma or Papua New Guinea?

Let's not forget the other side of the coin. And instead of blaming it all on Murdoch, let's provide for dozens of competing Murdochs shining lights in dark corners, as he quite rightly pointed out in his Margaret Thatcher lecture.